


Passacaglia

by captainkilly



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Gen, Mentions of Snoke - Freeform, mentions of Force Lightning as a torture tool, mentions of Skywalker-Solo family, the if-you-squint version of Reylo, vague referrals to character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 15:19:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7850197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainkilly/pseuds/captainkilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wakes and remembers the Force weaves what it will. He wakes into dreams of memories, of family, of her.</p>
<p>The Light shines through it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Passacaglia

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first venture into the Star Wars fandom on a writing level. The concept for it ran away with me entirely and turned into a rather surprising voice. Title is taken from Bear McCreary's song "Passacaglia", which can be viewed as the companion to this piece.

He wakes to fire. It’s how he knows he’s dreaming.

The world around him is aflame with bright explosions of tinders that dance before his eyes. None of them touch him. He is but a ghost in their world. He stalks through the spaces they leave, within the dark shadows on a scorched soil, and takes great care to not be swept into their way.

He doesn’t know how old he was when he first saw the flames. His mind isn’t divided up in years. It doesn’t count the days with tally marks of survival. He's not like _her_ , though he almost wants to be. Instead, he divides his entire life into _Before_ and _After_. Life events chronicle hallmarks of his being. It's how he knows he ages at all. The flames have been there for as long as he can remember.

Perhaps the fire has indeed always been there. There is no _before the Force_ , after all, and the Force burns brighter than any flame. Or flash of lightning, he recalls then, and his mind weeps with pain.

He is dreaming mostly because he fell apart in the shadows of his room. To his knowledge, he has never passed out in public before. He has gripped a chair with both hands begging himself to steady, of course. His Master told him this was the price for eradicating the Light. Pain leads to liberation. Lightning cleanses the soul.

Even here, amid the fires in his mind, he calls the loathsome creature Master. He trembles before an unseen throne. His fingers are shaky from the aftershocks of training.

Kylo Ren hates himself for something he dares not name.

*

He wakes to ice and has already decided he hates this dream before he’s had a chance to draw breath.

Ice makes him think of failure.

Ice makes him think of death.

In a sense, they are the same: fear-based notions of an unclean mind that must be answered with the structure of rage. They must be met with the power of the Dark. Made to succumb to it. A white world blackened by his scorn would be the ultimate redemption in the eyes of his unforgiving Master. He tells himself this even when he cowers before the snow-brushed pines of the vast woodlands that threaten to consume him. He tries to drill it into his mind even when the Dark leaves him entirely alone. He never comes here with his saber. Not after that. Not after _her_.

He shakes his head as if to clear it. The white world cracks beneath his feet. For a moment, he thinks of falling. Tumbling toward the darker depths that lurk beneath the snow. He thinks of how it would be to draw one's final breath in the white.

He dreams of Han Solo’s face.

Unspoken lie the other words. Father. Dad. _Daddy._

He crumbles upon shards of ice and weeps.

*

He wakes to rain and knows this dream is not his.

There is a song to the pitter-patter on the rooftop that he doesn’t know. There are words lurking in the hum of the steady drumming sound. He can guess at what they spell out for another. 

They never speak to him any longer.

This is a _Before_ and an _After_ in the same breath. He steadies himself with one hand to the wall. He moves to the doorway almost without thinking.

This is a house of women.

He’s been here only once.

Before his mother left him, she took him here. It was after he had seen grandmother’s funeral in his dreams. Grandmother had been sad in a way his mother wasn’t. Strong and regal in a way he knew all too well. Beautiful in a way of queens and angels. He carelessly wonders if his mother is that way now, too, or if the years have been less kind to her.

He drums the funeral of the Naboo with still-trembling fingers. 

He knows the rain's song then, in an instant, and his strength almost deserts him. She'd sung him these lullabies from Alderaan.

The song of mother and grandmother stutters to a halt as a broken voice gasps out his given name.

_Ben._

He flees.

*

He wakes to water again, only now it’s not a dream of rain.

He's dismayed to find he is immersed in it. Sputters as he swallows salty water upon his next inhale. He's never quite liked the water, though he supposes it's still much better than sand. He spots a nearby rocky shore. Sprawling forth from the rocks are cliffs and their tops, rising ominously in the distance. The water creates a haze of mist before his eyes.

He is not alone.

There is a presence in the water he cannot give a name to. There is distress rolling off the waves at his back. The panic floods his being for a moment. The fear is nothing like the way he dreads the ice. His fear is comprised of regret's dance with grief, which he will -- no, must -- burn one day. This fear, this new fear.. this is something else entirely.

It takes him a moment to remember its name.

_Survival._

He whirls around in the water then, because the taste of the distress is too much like drowning. He feels as though a part of him is going under even as he decides to swim out into the stricken waves. Fear cloys at his robes with unseen hands and a desperate grasp. He chants out a chorus of "please please please" without meaning to as he sees the water's haze wrap itself around a hand.

He crosses that distance before he has any time to think at all.

When he dives underwater, he is surprised at the dark that lurks inside of it. He can barely see a thing. He reaches out into the ink-like depth. Brushes past something that feels like hair, feels like cloth, and finally feels like skin. He grabs hold of the latter as tightly as he can manage.

He kicks off into the open air with both a stroke of luck and the Force swirling around him. He believes he senses a small hum of it in reply from the limp presence in his arms. Frowns at the discovery. 

When he finally drags her face above the water, he is not even surprised to see her.

He takes great care to hold her nose and mouth above the waves with one hand. He closes his eyes for a moment as his other hand reaches to rest on her chest. He pulls her against him. Then, he pushes at her lungs. Once. Twice. Thrice.

He's acting on instinct now. He's never had to use anything to save someone before. His Master said that's not how the Force works. The Force only takes and takes and takes and murders everything in its wake. The Force sings of loss and sacrifice, though he doesn't pretend to understand the latter. Doesn't comprehend it in the ways his father did. He thinks to himself it may be something like saving lives, now that he is overcome with the will to save someone other than himself.

He finds himself thinking his Master may be wrong as he pushes for her lungs to comprehend the concept of air once more. He pushes the will to live inside of her even as his own desire to live deserts him entirely. He _knows_ his Master's wrong when the next sound he hears is her gasp for breath and her heart coming alive with the pitter-patter of survival. The Force gives, too. The Force lives within all things great and small. 

His uncle's words flood him and threaten to choke his breath from him. The Force seeks balance in all things. Now that he cups her face and gazes at her, he no longer seeks but understands.

He allows himself the luxury of one fleeting smile brushing against her forehead before he sets out to pull her to shore. His hand travels from her chest to her waist as he drags her along with the stream. He tightens his hold on her as she comes alive with gasps and sputters, coughing up water all the way to land and safety. He holds her even when she opens her eyes and turns to look at him. He holds her even when the gratitude turns into anger.

He pushes her out onto the rocks unceremoniously. Observes her for a little while. He's aware he must look like a stranded dark bird of prey between earth and sea. She's green and sand and white and luminescent when she tilts her head back and laughs a throaty laugh that he knows is _danger_ before her gaze even fixates on him. When her eyes finally focus enough to land on his face and catch the angry gleam of the scar she left him, he wishes for the water to take him and swallow him whole.

The rolling tide that washes over him anew is a mercy that makes him close his eyes in gratitude.

*

He wakes to darkness and, for a moment, he thinks he's no longer dreaming.

His waking hours are spent in space and perpetual night. His vision is clouded with shadows. His senses are dulled by a mask and the ragtag armour-clothing that hallmarks all the Knights of Ren. It used to help him focus. It used to allow him to survive.

His world has been plunged in dark ever since his Master began to speak to him. Then came the vision of grandfather -- splendour in Dark, powerful with the Force, and unforgivingly foreboding to an admiring grandson. Briefly, he wonders if it was normal for grandfather's presence to take some of the darkness back. The perfect darkness had vanished upon grandfather's leaving. His vision now always shows him tiny specks of light amid the dark.

They are like the stars that he can't help but covet.

There are no stars or twinkling lights out in this darkness before him. He is afloat in the vast expanse of its space. He almost fears that his Master lurks within the dark that surrounds him. Sees his weakness and decides once and for all that he is not worth his name, his face, his legacy. He trembles with the weight of fear and loss and longing.

He forgets to give names to what he feels, though his heart betrays him and beats a steady drumming pace to Master.. father.. _Rey_.

There is a warmth that blossoms in the dark, then, and he knows his Master does not lurk in the depth of this. Master is just as cold as the ice that cracks and breaks under his feet every night in his dreams. No, this is not that darkness. Relief floods him with all the warmth of an embrace. 

He blinks at the small light that appears in the distant dark. Squints against it as it begins to expand. The light invades the dark relentlessly. He breathes it in as though he's a dying man seeking out the last vestige of oxygen.

He breathes and asks the Light for mercy.

_Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me._

*

He wakes to sand this time. He knows this cannot be his dream.

The heat that radiates off the deserted dunes weighs him down. The sky overhead is a brighter blue than he's ever seen. He shrugs his cloak off and drops it in the sand at his feet. 

He senses her presence at his back. He doesn't turn to greet her. Fleetingly, he wonders if she intends to fight him. The air doesn't sing with violence, however, and her footsteps sound calm. She comes to stand next to him. He glances down at her. She doesn't reach past his shoulders, but her presence here is greater than his own. She leans slightly on a staff that almost looks like it's fashioned out of several lightsabers.

"Thank you," she speaks into the quiet between them.

He nods in understanding as a vision of waves enters his mind. He thinks it strange for a second that she is thanking him in her dream for something he did for her in another dream. Decides not to wonder at how dreams work, exactly. He worries he wouldn't like that answer. 

"I wanted to kill you," she says to him, then, and he almost smiles at her nerve. "I wanted to hurt you for what you'd done. For what you were going to do. Maybe, I just wanted to eradicate your existence from the galaxy no matter how much some people wanted you to come home." Her voice is weary with memory. For a moment, it is like shards of ice that pierce his skin. She glances up at him when she speaks the next words in a more peaceful tone. "I'm trying to practice equanimity."

"Is it working for you?" he asks her, then. 

"Better than your training probably would've." He senses his uncle's hand in her tone, though she is less judgmental and far more curious. Her voice is filled with part-admonishment and part-amusement as she turns fully toward him. "Why did you ask me to become your student?" 

He pauses for a long while. Stares out at the sand as though he can extract individual grains from it by sheer force of will. He doesn't want to look at her. "The Force is strong in you," he answers. "I saw something in you I hadn't seen in a long time. Maybe had never seen in anyone but me." He hesitates, then. Decides to give her the full answer all the same. "I never wanted you to be my student in the way that I would be your master. I just wanted to teach you things that I learned, too. Maybe you could teach me as well within that time. I suppose I wanted to see the Force through your eyes."

"See the Force before it was poisoned," she hums at him in understanding. His throat constricts violently. Bile rises and burns inside of him with acidic venom. There's a roar coming to life inside of him that promises violence, but he knows in an instant that this is not his own. All the rage he feels belongs to Master. He suddenly doesn't trust himself to speak. She watches him too perceptively as she tells him: "I don't think I want to kill you any longer." 

Her gaze on him burns brighter than the sun. Fleetingly, he marvels at how much it feels like the flames of his mind. It's not quite forgiveness that she offers him. It's not a capitulation from her to him, though he fears _he_ will surrender to _her_ in his next waking moments. She sounds at peace in the centre of his turmoil.

He turns toward her then.

"What do you know of the Force?" he whispers.

Her answer lingers in the air that dances between them. 

*

He wakes to silence.

This is not a dream.

He groans as he realises he's planted face first on the cold floor of his chambers. Rubs his face tiredly and begins to rise slowly. The first time, his arms almost give out underneath him. Small tremors wreck his body even now. His Master had called it punishment for failure. He knows he's torn the wound in his side open again, though it has healed enough by now to no longer be a real bother. 

He sits up and unfastens his cloak. He hisses as he removes his gloves and finds that the skin on his hands is cracked and marred with lines of lightning. The trembling grows more pronounced now that he attempts to push to his feet. He curses softly under his breath. Grabs a hold of his table and his chair. His cloak drops to the floor more unceremoniously than it did in his dream.

When he's finally on his feet, it feels rather like a long victory.

He is tired beyond all recognition. Force-fueled dreams don't leave one with rest in the waking moments. It's worse for him now because he passed out from a nerve-induced exhaustion. His mind feels scattered in the quiet. He cannot pretend that he is anything but young and weary of the silent dark. He longs for a time when he had no Master. The sacrilege of the thought sears itself into his brain.

He clings to it against all better judgment.

The dim lights in his room begin to flare bright, brighter, brightest. The whirring machinations of the never-quiet spaceship around him begin to sound rather like a song. His fingers tap a frantic rhythm on the steel of the chair.

The call of the Light almost deafens him. 

"The Force seeks balance in all things," he whispers into the quiet, "and needs to find it in all of us." A certainty steps forth inside of him now that he's spoken her words out loud. He catches his reflection in the remains of the mirrors he shattered a long time ago. This time is the only time he does not look away. "This is what we all learn in our own time, in our own space." 

He heaves a sigh.

He tries to centre himself in the silence, but it comes alive with the burning frenzy of the fires within his mind. The Force is tangible in the breaths he inhales and exhales. 

In breath.

Out breath.

The sun always rises. This much he knows. Sand burns more than suns. This much he knows. Compressors put too much stress on hyperdrive flows. This much he knows. 

He hears her replying laughter inside his mind. The throatiness of it brushes against his thoughts like nails and needles upon his skin. He shivers in reply. Her warmth floods him anew with the longing of becoming part of something.. _different_. It mingles with the existing flames inside of his being. He is suddenly certain that, were he to set foot in his dreams again, there would not be any shadows left to walk in.

Then, her being blooms forth fully in the scorching heat of her joy. She feels like peace and it's something he could never have taught her. He feels himself shift. _Open._ Light crashes into his being like waves, pushing to overtake him and swallow him whole. He knows now that dreams are not just dreams. Not when the Force needs to balance itself anew.

_Don't be afraid,_ she whispers in the quiet of his mind. Her voice illuminates him and threatens to consume him. His cheeks are wet with salt and hope. _I feel it too. I feel it too._

_I feel it, too._


End file.
